


Cardassian cardassini lupus

by AngelaChristian



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Deep Space Nine - Freeform, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Non Consensual, Rape, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-29
Updated: 2011-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-21 22:11:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelaChristian/pseuds/AngelaChristian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bashir helps Garak to deal with traumatic memories.<br/>Teaser : My arms and legs were fixed to the frame by metal clamps, with one clamp wrapped around my waist. The last thing I remembered was two of my colleagues coming to visit me, but then one of them took out an injection pistol and sedated me before I could take it away from him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cardassian cardassini lupus

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to "Guilty".  
> 

Header  
Title : Cardassian cardassini lupus  
Rating : NC-17  
Words : 3,509  
Genre : h/c, slash, angst  
Warning : sexual violence, torture  
Beta :mrs260, thanks !  
Pairing : Garak/Bashir  
Season : S 7 during “Afterimage” with reference to “The Wire”  
Summary : Bashir helps Garak to deal with traumatic memories.  
Disclaimer : Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is owned by Paramount Pictures and created by Gene Roddenberry, I don’t make money with this.  
Teaser : My arms and legs were fixed to the frame by metal clamps, with one clamp wrapped around my waist. The last thing I remembered was two of my colleagues coming to visit me, but then one of them took out an injection pistol and sedated me before I could take it away from him.  
Note : It’s helpful to know the story “Guilty” , which also deals with Garak’s past.

~~~

Doctor Bashir stood in his office together with Ezri Dax. Some moments ago, Garak had been rushed into the Infirmary after collapsing in his shop. Julian had stabilized his circulation, injected him with a hypospray to make breathing easier, and added a sedative to calm him. Now the Cardassian tailor was sleeping on a diagnostic bed.

“Oh dear, this is quite a day, hm? I’ve never had a patient collapse during a session before. Actually, I haven’t had that many patients, so far.” She shrugged.

Julian smiled at her. “He’ll be fine. Although something got him really upset.”

“I admire you, Doctor. I couldn’t be so calm if my lover had just broken down.”

Now it was Bashir’s turn to be at the brink of having a nervous breakdown. “Oh my God, what did you say?”

“Your lover, Garak, right? Oh, did I say something wrong? I’m sorry. I mean, I don’t mind you being gay--I mean, I’m a man as well and--oh, shit.” She looked at him, stricken with remorse.

Julian was shocked by her words. How could she know about them? Was what they felt for each other that obvious, although they did their best to hide their relationship when in public? This wasn’t the best time for a Human and a Cardassian to be lovers anyway, now that Cardassia was part of the Dominion and at war with the Federation. Also, he wondered whether any of his other colleagues had ever found out about him and Garak being more than friends as they always claimed.

“I said something wrong--you never told anybody, right?”

Julian nodded. “It’s not supposed to be the latest gossip on Deep Space Nine, although I think that my friends won’t mind, either. But I was sure you couldn’t know.” Besides the difficult political situation, he still felt awkward about admitting his attraction to men in public. It was difficult enough to be a kind of superman, but not everybody , especially outside the Federation, was as tolerant as Starfleet when it came to homosexuality.

“Jadzia always sensed, after reading your diaries, that it would be just a matter of time for you to realize it. And when she saw you spending more and more time with Garak, well, she drew the right conclusions. I guess. “

She had enjoyed seeing the reflection of admiration and yearning in his eyes when looking at her, and found it disappointing to look at him now that this expression had gone. But this man was a total stranger, Ezri told herself, that she had never met before. How could she be so arrogant as to think that he was overwhelmed by her physical appearance? Again, this was one more of these funny déjà vu moments she had experienced after being joined. The feeling of knowing a stranger very well, or at least recognizing people and remembering their names before they were introduced. Surely the emotions she felt came from Jadzia Dax, not from herself.

“I think I’d better go now,” she said, and walked out of the Infirmary before things got totally out of control.

Julian frowned. How could Jadzia know him better than he knew himself? Thinking of her brought back painful memories of her death. But Julian was too busy to be engulfed in memories of the past: his patient needed him.  
He walked over to Garak’s diagnostic bed in order to check the monitors. The moment he reached it, the Cardassian’s eyelids opened. He turned his head in his direction.

“Doctor?”

Bashir took his hand. “You passed out in your shop while having a panic attack.”

“This is quite embarrassing. What are my costumers supposed to think of me?”

“You’ll be fine. Tell me, did anything in particular happen to you during the last weeks, besides the obviously bad news concerning the war?”

Garak flinched. Those dreams that made him wake up screaming in the middle of the night and left him panting and disoriented in his quarters. The reason that kept him from sleeping, for fear of those memories coming back to him after many years. Within minutes, he could remember every painful detail. His body got tense and slightly trembled.

Julian felt that Garak was close to having another attack and reached for a hypospray on a tray near his bed.

“I’ll give you something to relax,” he said in a calm voice.

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“Garak, please tell what makes you so upset. Are you afraid of somebody coming after you? Did anybody threaten you? Somebody from Cardassia, maybe?” Once, Garak’s own father had hired an assassin in order to kill him. Julian never knew how he found out or who warned him, but the matter ended in Garak blowing up his own shop to attract Constable Odo’s attention. Both left the station, only to end up in a battle between the Cardassian and Romulan secret services and the Founders, which they’d survived only by an inch.

“It’s not a person, it’s my past itself, Doctor. I told you long ago about me being exiled from Cardassia for treason, but I didn’t have the strength to tell you about what happened to me on the night before I left my home planet.”

Garak looked around himself carefully. “I would appreciate a more private environment for our conversation, Doctor.”

Bashir nodded. “If you’re feeling strong enough to walk, then I’ll accompany you to your quarters.”

“Again, thank you, Doctor.”

After a short walk, both men reached the Cardassian’s quarters and entered. Julian helped Garak lie down on his bed. Then he took a seat next to him.

“I’m not a counsellor--maybe you should be talking to Ezri instead--but I’ll do my best to help you.”

“Ezri has enough problems at the moment in dealing with the effects of being joined with the Dax symbiont. I don’t want to bother her with problems that might be too difficult to handle for a young counsellor under these circumstances. Just listen to me, Doctor. I think that it won’t be easy for either of us, but I hope to feel better after telling somebody about it. And you are still the only person that I can let come that close to me. Listen to me as my lover.  
“The Obsidian Order wouldn’t let me go without their special idea of a farewell, that was for sure. When I regained consciousness, I lay stretched out and naked on an interrogation rack. My arms and legs were fixed to the frame by metal clamps, with one clamp wrapped around my waist. The last thing I remembered was two of my colleagues coming to visit me, but then one of them took out an injection pistol and sedated me before I could take it away from him. I think Tain ordered them to take me there and punish me for my betrayal of Cardassia. I recognized the building as the interrogation center that I worked in. I turned my head, when the door opened. Eloy, a protégé of Tain like me, entered the room. He looked at me like I was a kind of parasite. I wasn’t surprised to see him here, because he always let me feel how much he disliked and disdained me. He stood there in silence, staring at my naked body.

“‘I am quite handsome, am I not?’ I joked.

“‘Your arrogance is second to none,’ he said with disdain. ‘I’ll wipe that arrogant smile off your face for good.’

“‘Are you still jealous because Tain likes me more than you?’ I teased.

“Now he gave me a suggestive smile. ‘I always wondered why Tain is so fond of you. Maybe you two share a dirty secret. Maybe you don’t just figuratively suck up to him.’ He laughed. ‘He knows about your interest in men, doesn’t he?’

“His words made me very angry. How could he dare to think that me and Tain…? But my interest in men was something that Tain should never find out about. Knowing me to be gay would make him hate me forever.

“‘Did you just come here in order to insult me, or is there any useful purpose to your actions?’ I replied calmly.

“‘You’re right, there is a purpose. I’ve got to show you how the Obsidian Order deals with traitors like you.’

“Without further warning, he punched my face. I groaned loudly when my body reacted in its unusual, but familiar, way, by sending waves of pleasure through me. Because of the implant, I didn’t feel any pain at the moment he hit me, but I tasted blood dripping down from my split lip into my mouth. Then he hit me again and again; several times in my face, in my stomach, and in my ribs. His blows made me feel good: the harder he hit me, the higher it took me.”

Bashir listened with growing dismay. He had a bad feeling about the direction this was going to go. But he didn’t want to interrupt Garak.

“‘You’re a vicious bastard!’ I hissed with my teeth clenched.

“‘Better than a traitor and a disgrace to the Order!’ he yelled at me.

“I groaned, grimaced, and arched my back against the shackles while he was beating my body to pulp. To him, I must have looked like I was in great pain, but I was close to a climax, as odd as it may sound. When he thought that I’d had enough, he let me lie on the bed and left without saying a word. I was afraid that he might have broken my ribs or other bones. But I was also afraid of what else he might do to me. I didn’t think that he knew about the implant: not every member had one; it depended on the kind of information a person had access to. So I lay on that rack, still feeling very well and exhausted.

“After a while, he returned. He gave me a vicious smile. ‘I know that you like men. So you will probably like this, too.’ Then he sat down on the bed next to me.

“‘Don’t touch me.’

“He grabbed my chin with one hand and turned my head in a way that forced me to look into his eyes. His expression made my blood freeze in my veins. His hand slid down my body to my crotch. I knew what he was going to do to me. He touched me hard and rough. I could feel my body reacting, against my wishes.

“‘Take your dirty hands off me and stop that at once!’ I hissed. But he kept on touching me. Again, there was no pain, but I felt full of hate and anger.  
“‘You always showed off with your ability to find anybody’s weaknesses. But what about you, Elim? You can neither defend yourself, now, nor can you control your body. That’s your biggest fear, isn’t it? To lose control over yourself, or anyone or any situation in your life? Anything that you can’t control makes you afraid and insecure. That’s why you’re hiding behind a desk in an office, behind a mask of inviolability? But now, I can do anything I like to you. I could even kill you. It’s an amazing feeling to have power over somebody. You know that feeling very well, and you get a thrill out of it every time you interrogate a suspect. But now, I’ll give you a taste of your own medicine. At the end of our interrogation, I’ll have you confess anything I would like to hear. I can even make you come any time, if I like.’

“‘You might be able to abuse and disgrace my body, but you can’t hurt me.’ I struggled to control my breath. I felt like I was going to explode any minute. I wouldn’t be able to take that kind of stimulation any longer. It was disgusting to be touched by him, but at the same time, it felt so good. He knew exactly how to treat me. But I mustn’t enjoy it; this was all wrong.

“He gave me a greedy look that sent cold shivers down my spine. Touching me wouldn’t be enough for him. Then he pinched me hard. I gasped with pleasure and surprise.

“He smiled at me in a dirty way. ‘I knew that you like men. I can feel how much you like it.’

“‘I…don’t…like…it,’ I panted.

“He laughed at me. ‘Then why are you panting and hard as rock, if you dislike it so much? Ah, I guess you can’t control yourself. You have no power over it, but I have.’

“He was right: I didn’t want to come at all, I was fighting against those very pleasant sensations, but in the end, I would lose, because I couldn’t control it.”

Listening to his lover’s detailed narrative almost gave Julian physical pain. How could these people be so cruel among each other? He felt nauseated at the thought of being in Garak’s place. This was so perverted.

“The door opened and two soldiers entered; I recognized them as the guards who often assisted me during interrogations. I assumed the worst.

“Then I closed my eyes, so at least I didn’t have to look at them. I felt my breath getting faster and faster. My thoughts were wandering to another time and place.

“The wind was blowing softly through my hair, the sky was of the brightest blue on that summer day at the beach. I could hear the waves rolling to the shore and smell the fresh, clean air. I sat down in the sand and watched the sea. Some birds were flying above my head. I was back in the past on that nice summer holiday I’d spent years ago on the beach of Cardassia Prime.

“But all that I remember about what actually happened after they entered the room is a blur of touches, sensations, fear, and panic. Afterwards I partially woke up on the rack, feeling tired and sick, although I couldn’t feel any pain despite the things they did to me. Slowly, the pleasant sensations ceased, and so my mind got clearer again. Later, I was sentenced to exile.

“I think they gave me what I deserved for being a traitor and a sadistic monster,” he stated in a remorseful voice.

While Garak spoke, Julian sat next to his bed and felt like he was watching a kind of twisted theater performance. He just didn’t want to believe that the things that he’d just heard had actually happened. This couldn’t be true, but he never had any doubt that Garak was dead serious. At Starfleet medical school, he was trained in how to deal with victims of sexual assaults, but this took him by surprise and made him feel helpless. Especially because it had happened to somebody as close to him as Garak.

“Garak…” he said in a soft voice, “I had no idea. And no! No matter what you did in the past, nothing gives anybody a right to treat you that way!”  
Garak chuckled bitterly. “Face it, Doctor, I am what I am and what I did. There is no excuse. I sometimes enjoyed what I did to those innocent people who were brought to me. Making them scream in terror or groan with pain was a kind of game to me. How fast could I break them? Which method was most efficient? I’m not different than my former colleagues or any war criminal, and I don’t deserve any forgiveness, either. Helping the Federation brought back all these memories and opened up long-forgotten wounds. I must seem to be a kind of monster to you, too, Doctor.”

Julian took Garak’s hand. “Do you remember when you asked me to forgive you, when your implant was malfunctioning and had to be turned off? You asked for my forgiveness and I forgave you, and I’ll do it once again. You’re not a bad person, although you might have made great mistakes. There is still hope for you.”

Now Julian understood Garak’s fear of trusting anybody much better; it all made sense. Garak’s breakdown earlier in his shop and the panic attacks resulting from this maltreatment weren’t a pure medical problem anymore. If he had known earlier of this trauma, he could have helped him sooner and more efficiently--at least he could have sent him to a Starfleet psychologist for further treatment years ago. But he was sure that Garak wouldn’t want to talk to Ezri, the new counsellor, about this very personal matter in therapy sessions.

“There was a time when I thought of myself as a kind of freak or monster, too.”

Garak lifted an eye ridge in surprise.

“Before the fact of my genetic enhancement became public, I always had feelings of not deserving any of what I had achieved in my life, my career, or anything at all. I felt like a fraud, like I had cheated on all the exams I’d ever taken, because of those enhancements. The stupid mistake I made in my final exam, the one that made me second instead of first of my class, wasn’t a mistake at all. I thought second was enough, because I had no right to take that much for myself and rob other students of their success for their hard work. In fact, I was embarrassed by all the praise I got for my great and remarkable work and I was afraid that, sooner or later, somebody might find out that I was nothing more than a slow boy and not the genius everybody seemed to see when looking at me.

“I could never be proud of anything I did, because it just wasn’t me who did it, but those enhancements. Without them, I would be nothing. I think that’s what I always hated my parents for. They never gave me the chance to achieve something all by myself and be proud of it. Instead, everything was a kind of gift that I couldn’t enjoy at all. Everything had to be given by the enhancements to unable Jules, because he couldn’t make it by himself. It was humiliating. When Doctor Zimmermann found out about it, it was a kind of relief to me. I didn’t have to hide anymore.”

Julian sighed.

“There is something that is original about you, Doctor, something that was never touched by any resequencing procedure. It is your sense of justice, your empathy and charitableness as a human being. Some might misinterpret it as naivety, as I did a long time ago, but your optimism and ability to love, trust, and forgive is what makes you truly human. You’re an idealist, not a fool.”

Julian smiled. “Chief O’Brien mentioned something like that a while ago.”

“So it must be true, then,” Garak said, then continued, “When Section 31 tried to recruit you, you were much stronger than I, who couldn’t resist the temptation of being given unlimited power within the Obsidian Order, which let me to the point where I am now. As one of your human proverbs says, if you want to judge a person’s character, give him or her power. You passed that test with distinction; I failed. You can be truly proud, Doctor.”  
“I try not to judge, but to understand and be without prejudice. It isn’t always as easy as it may seem. You made me look at things from another, more cynical point of view and made me realize that sometimes the wrong thing might be right. Things aren’t as black and white as I saw them for years; you showed me the shades of grey.” Julian paused, then returned to the events Garak had revealed to him. “If you had told me all this a long time ago, I would have found a counsellor for you and I would have been more careful with you. I’m not speaking as your doctor now.”

“Maybe I never wanted to talk to anybody, or be handled carefully like some kind of cripple? Maybe I wanted to be strong enough to handle it myself, or maybe I wanted to forget it, together with the other unpleasant memories about my time within the Obsidian Order?”

“Those words sound very familiar to me. Although I help so many people every day, I find it difficult to accept help coming from others. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Garak looked into his eyes. “Julian, I love you.”

The doctor softly squeezed his hand. “I always knew, and so do I.”

Garak smiled at him. “But we won’t sink into each other’s arms, kissing deeply and then have sex right here, will we, Doctor?”

“What?” This sudden change of subject took him by surprise.

“Yes, Doctor, according to the human idea of love that I got from some of the novels that you lent to me, that’s what follows after a conversation like ours. Although it’s the nurse, rather than the doctor, who falls in love with the wounded and traumatized patient.”

“I see you’re feeling much better already, and I should be more careful about the books I lend to you.”

~~~

The end


End file.
